SSA has been doing CFD for a while, not in a mainstream way, but by picking a number of specific areas and investigating novel ways of getting results without huge computing resources. In the area of performance predictions for pumps we've achieved really good results, and are starting to make some real headway in alternative energy, modelling the behaviour of tidal turbines. We've also had some real success in heat-sink design.
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You can buy sticky backed plastic coloured and patterned to look like carbon fibre. The idea is that you stick it to components engineered from entirely appropriate material systems to give them the allure and cache of high technology. And in many cases this is the optimal design approach to looks, cost and performance. The problem is that even the technical details of composites have a certain attraction.
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A few years back I was at a party, talking to a retired Oxford academic. (Not exactly the sort of party where you'd bump into Jack Nicholson; for some reason I don't seem to be invited to many of those.) "In 1968 I wrote some contact elements to model a hip joint" he said. "Have they finished running yet?" I replied. Well I thought it was funny.
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